Monday, February 04, 2013

A federal jury today found former Valdosta State University (VSU) President Ronald M. Zaccari personally liable for $50,000 for violating the due process rights of former student Hayden Barnes in the case of Barnes v. Zaccari.
In May 2007, Zaccari expelled Barnes for peacefully protesting
Zaccari's plan to construct two parking garages on campus, calling a collage posted by Barnes on his personal Facebook page a "threatening document" and labeling
Barnes a "clear and present danger" to VSU. Barnes first came to the
Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) for help in October
2007.

"College administrators have been blatantly and willfully
violating student rights for decades, but they have far too often dodged
personal responsibility. Not so today," said FIRE President Greg
Lukianoff. "We hope this serves as a much-needed wake up call to college
administrators that it's time to start paying close attention to the
basic rights of their students."

"After five years, I finally
feel vindicated. This is a victory for me but it's also a victory for
students everywhere," said Barnes. "I hope that other college
administrators take heed and see that violating students' rights can be
costly and that they will be held accountable. I thank my legal team and
FIRE for making this victory possible and my friends and family for
standing by me through this difficult fight."

Barnes' ordeal
began in the spring of 2007, when he protested Zaccari's plan to
construct two new parking garages on campus at a cost of $30 million. By
posting flyers and sending emails to Zaccari, student and faculty
governing bodies, and the Board of Regents of the University System of
Georgia, Barnes expressed his concerns and proposed what he saw as
environmentally friendly alternatives. Barnes also penned a letter to the editor of the VSU student newspaper about the proposed parking garage plans and wrote to Zaccari to ask for an exemption from the mandatory student fee designated for funding the construction.

In response to Barnes' activism, Zaccari personally ordered that he be "administratively withdrawn"
from VSU in May of 2007, ignoring the concerns raised by members of his
administration. Zaccari absurdly claimed that Barnes presented a "clear
and present danger" to both Zaccari and the VSU campus on the basis of a
cut-and-paste collage
Barnes had posted on his Facebook page that included pictures of
Zaccari, a parking deck, and the caption "S.A.V.E.—Zaccari Memorial
Parking Garage." Given no notice or opportunity to defend himself,
Barnes came to FIRE for help in October 2007.

Today's verdict follows five years of litigation, both at the trial and appellate levels.

All too often university administrators, particularly at the uppermost levels, act as if they were tin pot dictators because most times there is no one able or willing to hold them accountable for their misdeeds. Cases like this can serve an important reminder that state-run colleges and universities are not personal fiefdoms to be run any way they damn well please, nor are students and faculty second-class peasants without Constitutional rights.